i read once there is a naval vessel called hms hazard sunk just outside portsmouth harbour.can`t find much information on it.it cannot be dived on because qhm will not allow it due to being in busy shipping lane outside the harbour.anyone know how she sank?

Steve Woodward

29th December 2008, 00:57

I think this might be the 1894 built Dryad class torpedo gunboat, they were sometimes referred to as the Halcyon class. She sank on the 28th January 1918 after a colision in the Eastern approaches to the Solent.
For a warship she was an odd looking ship with a raised poop and focsle, she was built by Pembroke dockyard being laid down on the 01st December 1892, launched on the 17th Feb 1894 and commissioned in Sept 1894
L 260 (approx) B 30'06" draft 12 feet disp 1,070 tons, twin screw, 3 cyl tripple expansion steam engines, 2,500 ihp normal draught and 3,500 ihp (260 rpm)forced draught giving a max speed of 18 knots, cylinder diams of the engines were 22" 34" and 51" steam being supplied by four cylindrical fire tube boilers
Armament when built : two 4.7" and four 6 pounder guns plus a Nordenfelt 5 barrel machine gun, five 18" torpedo tubes completed the outfit, one tube foired through the stem above water, one the same but through the stern post and the other two were mounted on deck in the waist amidships
About 1914 Hazard was converted to a submarine tender for the Holland class subs
If you need an Image plse Pm me and I will send you one - I cannot post as I do not kbnow the copywrite, alternatively there is a couple of shots of her on THIS (http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/depot_ships.htm) site
Steve